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Monday, September 26, 2011

Frictionless Sharing

Should you be concerned about your privacy on Facebook's recently announced "frictionless sharing" plan that lets online sites and services automatically share your activity with your Facebook friends?

The basic idea behind Facebook's new sharing system is that clicking a "Like" button is too burdensome. So why not let a news site do the sharing for you, with almost no action on your part?

All you have to do is authorize a new Facebook application such as The Washington Post Social Reader, The Guardian's new Facebook app, or Yahoo news. Then every time you read a news article online, your activity will automatically be shared with your friends.

So, now everywhere you go, everything you do is being sent back to your Facebook friends and stored on company servers. Creepy, right? Maybe. But if you don't want your friends to know you love to read news stories about Lindsay Lohan or that you follow the details of every gruesome murder across the country, here's my advice: authorize wisely.